By Jerry Kolins, MD, DipWSET, Certified Sommelier
Jerry Kolins is a physician and wine enthusiast who is a certified sommelier with a WSET diploma. Jerry practices medicine at Palomar Health in San Diego County, California. During the evenings, he serves the guests at Bistro Pazzo in La Jolla. He has no financial interest in any wine that he recommends. He does have an interest in his blog, vineandvictors.com, in which he has paired various sporting events with wine.
There is a pairing of wine that transcends the best of pairing with cuisine. Such pairings are emotional experiences that surpass any three star Michelin wine dinner. They entail creative wine matches that do not require food.
Have you ever longed for your team to finally achieve championship status? Losing, year after year, or coming close to the gold medal is disheartening. Then, it finally happens. What you thought you would never witness now requires a wine to match your emotional moment. That wine depends on your emotional state and the event.
To determine the pairing, link the background story of the event to the structure, appearance, aroma and taste of the wine. This is similar to pairing wine with food. Your choice depends on the background story. For example, if you want to pair a wine with a chicken dish, you need to know how the chicken is prepared. If you are preparing roast chicken, your choice of wine will be radically different than if the chicken is prepared Kung Pao style. One must know the backstory.
European Football (Soccer)
In the Paris 2024 Olympics, Spain won the men’s soccer gold medal. How should Spain celebrate that moment? Yes, you can say Cava and that would be just fine. But this game is brutal, exhausting, and requires a stamina that you don’t see in baseball. The celebration requires a full bodied wine, and with blood on the field, the wine must be red.
So, let’s go inland and south of Catalunya. You can find the appropriate celebratory wine in Jumilla where the Monastrell grape is dominant. The Juan Gil Silver Label 2019 from Jumilla is rich and intense like a world champion soccer match. Jumilla has a hot climate and, like the event, provides high octane performance. The alcohol is 15% and the wine is affordable. You can pair this wine with red meat, but after the gold medal win, does it really need pairing? It’s time for just the wine and you.
Ice Hockey
Jack Rowden Hughes scored the overtime game winning goal in the 2026 Olympics to give the USA team their first men’s hockey gold medal since 1980. That’s a long time to wait for a celebration. How do you celebrate that? We need to know a little about our hero.
Hughes is from an ice hockey family. His father played the game and was an assistant coach for the Boston Bruins. His older brother, Quinn, played for the University of Michigan, 2017-2019, and his younger brother, Luke, played for the same Michigan Wolverines from 2021-2022 leading the league in goals scored. All three brothers with Michigan experience play in the National Hockey League. Isn’t the celebratory wine obvious? We must serve ice wine.
Germany and Canada are the two countries known for superb ice wine. There is no question about that. But, for this gold medal Olympic achievement, we need to turn to the upper peninsula of Michigan where the climate matches the fierceness of Robert W. Service’s poem about Sam McGee. Ice wine is often described as the perfect dessert with aromas of baked apples, apricots, peach, and honey. The Riesling grape varietal is highly prized for these qualities. But it is not the perfect pairing here.
Image by Kyle Brownley courtesy of Chateau Chantal
Sam Bennett, the Canadian ice hockey player, knocked out two of Jack’s front teeth, and put blood on the ice. A Riesling ice wine just won’t do it. We need a red ice wine like the 2023 Chateau Chantal Cabernet Franc from Michigan’s upper peninsula. It’s a choice of balance, harmony or contrast. Here we choose to contrast the ferocious style of play with the balance of sweetness and acidity enjoyed by the victors.
USA College Football
In the Midwest of the United States, soccer, ice hockey, and baseball are all runner-up to college football. In Ohio and Michigan, more people are consumed by that November intercollegiate football game than the Super Bowl or the Olympics. I will readily admit that winning the lottery was a more likely happening than the Maize and Blue of Michigan beating the Scarlet and Gray of Ohio State in 2024. But Michigan won. What is the appropriate wine for this miracle?
Victorious Michigan can valiantly celebrate with a wine from Jura, France. Jura is famous for its Vin Jaune, i.e., yellow wine, though I prefer to describe it as maize in color. The wine is superb and unique—like Michigan. It is made from the white Savagnin grape not related to Cabernet Sauvignon or Sauvignon Blanc. When maturing in barrel, a veil of yeast, Le Voile, develops concealing the magic underneath. The wine is captivating—just like the aura surrounding The Game. The Yellow and Blue Wolverines require a Vin Jaune to commemorate the event.
Making Sense of It All
The approach to pairing wine with athletic events requires a link that amplifies the euphoria. Sparkling wine with the bubbles floating up the glass pairs with gymnastics, e.g., Tara Davis-Woodhall spouting wings in the Paris 2024 Olympics to capture the gold medal in the women’s long jump. If you win the gold, you deserve a great Champagne. Get a second mortgage and taste the 2002 Salon Cuvee ‘S’ Le Mesnil Blanc de Blanc Brut.
If your player just won Wimbledon, the connection to the court drives you toward the freshly cut grass of a Sauvignon Blanc. This pairing is found in the Loire rather than the thiol-pronounced passion fruit aroma of New Zealand. For the Loire, the choice is Henri Bourgeois, Pouilly-Fumé, La Demoiselle de Bourgeois, any vintage you can find. For New Zealand, turn to a sport that is uniquely theirs, i.e., the Canoe Hurdling competition. Their Sauvignon Blanc is as unique as their Māori culture. As they say in New Zealand, “Party on!”
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